What is good government? What is friendship? Are there universals in human nature? What are the origins of the universe?

Enduring Questions grants support the development by up to four faculty members of a new course on a fundamental concern of human life that is addressed by the humanities. This question-driven course encourages undergraduates and teachers to join together in a deep and sustained program of reading in order to encounter influential ideas, works, and thinkers over the centuries and into the present day.

Enduring questions persist across historical eras, societies, and regions of the world; they inform intellectual, ethical, artistic, and religious traditions; they engage thoughtful people from all walks of life; they transcend time and place and yet are immediate and present in our lives. Enduring questions have more than one plausible or compelling answer, allow for dialogue across generations, and inspire genuine intellectual pluralism.

An Enduring Questions course may be taught by faculty from any department or discipline in the humanities or by faculty outside the humanities (for example, astronomy, biology, economics, law, mathematics, medicine, or psychology), as long as humanities sources are central to the course.